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Organizational Resilience | BSI and Cranfield School of Management
Introducing the 4Sight methodology
The final section of the report will explore more specific requirements of
Organizational Resilience using a new methodology, ‘4Sight’, which provides a
leadership agenda for Organizational Resilience. 4Sight is particularly useful for
dealing with complex problems such as designing a new software application,
developing a new technology, planning a new infrastructure system, implementing
a major change programme or dealing with a crisis. Such challenges are difficult
to resolve because of incomplete or contradictory knowledge, the number of
stakeholders and opinions involved, the financial risk, and the interconnected nature
of these problems with other issues. Problems that involve changing behaviour,
values and priorities, or that are indeterminate in scope and scale, are particularly
“wicked” (Rittel and Weber, 1973). Mobilizing people to meet these challenges and
problems is at the heart of Organizational Resilience. 4Sight describes a repeatable
process employing creative thinking. It involves four core processes (see Figure 5).
INSIGHT
HINDSIGHT
FORESIGHT
OVERSIGHT
Learn the right lessons
from your experience
Interpret and respond to
your present conditions
Monitor and review
what has happened and
assess changes
Anticipate, predict and
prepare for your future
ACT
Respond
and create
disruptions and
opportunities
Figure 6: The 4Sight model of Organizational Resilience
Foresight
Anticipate, predict and prepare for your future.
The worst kind of uncertainty is being unaware of what you don’t know. Therefore,
scan for the stimuli to which the organization must respond if it is to survive and
grow. This will require constant surveillance for possible opportunities and potential
threats to the organization. Systematically explore possible, plausible, probable
and preferred futures. This foresight will help people in your organization to be
mentally prepared for uncertainty and change.
Foresight
also needs an inward focus
to help your people anticipate and notice problems, errors and issues within the
organization that could grow into significant incidents
.
Encourage people to heed
the warning signs and attend to ‘weak signals’ on impending problems. Just as with
evolution, the secret of resilience is variation, which, in organizational terms, comes